4 



IMPEEFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



seasons amusing themselves with these choral dances ; which 

 Mr. Wordsworth, in one of his poems 1 , has alluded to in the 

 following beautiful lines : — 



" Nor wanting here to entertain the thought, 

 Creatures that in communities exist 

 Less, as might seem, for general guardianship 

 Or through dependance upon mutual aid, 

 Than hy participation of delight, 

 And a strict love of fellowship combined. 

 What other spirit can it be that prompts 

 The gilded summer flies to mix and weave 

 Their sports together in the solar beam, 

 Or in the gloom and twilight hum their joy? " 



Another association is that of males during the season of 

 pairing. Of this nature seems to be that of the cockchafer 

 and femch&fer (Melolontha vulgaris and Amphimalla solstitialis), 

 which, at certain periods of the year and hours of the day, 

 hover over the summits of the trees and hedges like swarms 

 of bees, affording, when they alight on the ground, a grateful 

 food to cats, pigs, and poultry. The males of another root- 

 devouring beetle (Hoplia argentea) assemble by myriads be- 

 fore noon in the meadows, when in these infinite hosts you 

 will not find even one female. 2 After noon the congregation is 

 dissolved, and not a single individual is to be seen in the air 3 : 

 while those of M. vulgaris and A, solstitialis are on the wing 

 only in the evening. 



At the same time of the day some of the short-lived Ephe- 

 merae assemble in numerous troops, and keep rising and 

 falling alternately in the air, so as to exhibit a very amusing 

 scene. Many of these, also, are males. They continue this 

 dance from about an hour before sun-set, till the dew becomes 

 too heavy or too cold for them. In the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, for two successive years, I was so fortunate as to 

 witness a spectacle of this kind, which afforded me a more 

 sublime gratification than any work or exhibition of art has 

 power to communicate. The first was in 1811. Taking an 

 evening walk near my house, when the sun. declining fast 

 towards the horizon, shone forth without a cloud, the whole 



1 The Excursion. 



2 The females ( Scarahceus argenteus Marsh.) have red legs, and the males 

 ( ScarabcBus pulverulentus Marsh.) black. 



3 Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 256. 



